Welch: Tim Pawlenty makes a lot of sense, you know

posted at 10:10 am on June 9, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

Tim Pawlenty gets a lot of grief for not being “dynamic,” but he’s starting to become intriguing, legendary GE CEO Jack Welch told Piers Morgan last night. “Dynamic” can help get someone elected, Welch tells Morgan, but as we’ve seen with Obama, it doesn’t do much afterward. Welch had been leaning towards Romney — not a big surprise, considering they both come from Wall Street backgrounds — but Pawlenty’s economic plan “intrigues the hell” out of Welch now. Welch says that even Democrats might be taking a look at Pawlenty:

Morgan: Do you see anybody emerging on the Republican side who is the kind of leader that you’re looking for?

Welch: You know, Piers, this is a great question. Because if you asked me that a month ago, I would have said, well, Mitt Romney might be best guy, et cetera. The most obvious guy. But everything I see Tim Pawlenty say in the last month appeals to me. He’s not the jazziest guy in town. He’s not the most exciting. But if you look at what he says and his vision for America and that plan he put out in the last 48 hours. Every time I see him on an interview, whether it be your show or somebody else’s, the guy makes sense.

Morgan: He definitely does. My only issue with him is that he — he’s not the most dynamic of characters. Does that matter anymore? Because Obama —

Welch: It makes a lot of difference to get elected. It doesn’t do a hell of a lot for you once you’re in the job.

Morgan: You’re a Republican, right?

Welch: Yes, absolutely.

Morgan: So you want somebody who can beat President Obama. Now, Barack Obama, whether you like him or not, is a very, very dynamic kind of character.

Welch: Terrific.

Morgan: He has the youthful exuberance and zest and all that kind of thing. When you look at somebody like Tim Pawlenty, I think he’s a smart guy. I’ve enjoyed having him on the show. He makes a lot of sense, like you say. I can see the temptation. But in your heart, do you think he can beat someone like Obama?

Welch: I’m going to find out over the next 15 months. Hopefully the next 6 to 9 months because they’re going to pick somebody in the primary. But, I mean, I just have found him — you know, I was at the gym this week talking to some guys who never would have thought this. I said what I just told you. That his guy’s starting to intrigue the hell out of me. And then he came out with this plan. I talked to some guy. He said, I’m going to have to throw a fundraiser for him. I almost dropped dead. This guy would never support Tim Pawlenty in his life. He’s a Democrat. He’s going to have a fundraiser for him.

Morgan: Why do you think he’s doing that?

Welch: He likes what he says. He likes what he says. There’s some buyer’s remorse on the Wall Street crowd over the Obama selection, whether you want to buy that or not. There is some buyer’s remorse.

Jack Welch carries weight on economic and fiscal policy among conservatives, although Welch has never been overtly political. The last time we checked in with Welch, he was blasting Obama on his supposed move to the center, warning about Card Check through executive fiat, and despairing over Obama’s assertion of social responsibility in the private sector. He’s obviously motivated by the desire to change Presidents, and while this isn’t an endorsement, it’s probably going to have people giving Pawlenty and his economic plan a closer look.

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But how can you blindly insist that lower taxes will produce economic growth when the last round of tax cuts was followed by a massive collapse?

ernesto on June 9, 2011 at 11:02 AM

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Not true… tech bubble caused the last recession just after the Clinton Kavalcade of Klowns vacated the administration. Tax reduction by Dubya spurred investment, growth, job creation and wealth creation.
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You must be talking about something Carter did. He really killed growth and and job creation plus ate up more wealth through economic malaise and price controls than any Republican in history. Economic dysfunction is the purview of Democrats.

Being against Cap&Trade is one of my personal non-negotiables. Can you not see why GE, who would be able to get a cornerstone on the energy-saving-device market, would be interested in pushing a candidate who is seems more “flexible” on this issue than another who is “drill here, drill now?”

I want my Republican friends to proceed cautiously and be fully informed when they make their primary selection.

Thanks for allowing me to chime in!

Mutnodjmet on June 9, 2011 at 10:54 AM

You need to read up on Jack Welch. He retired 10 years ago and Immelt was not hand picked by Welch. Immelt was ruthless in his pursuit of GE’s top spot and was named by the board.

He was named manager of the century in 1999 by Fortune or Forbes, I forget which.

As far as his personal life, he’s been married 3 times, The first was a mutual parting of the ways, the second was initiated by the wife who walked off with milliobns. He is currently married and his wife works with him in motivational seminars or something similar.

Pawlenty mentioned Welch’s “Six Sigma” way of managing a company in his speech the other day. That may have caught Welch’s attention more than anything.

Forget the fact that we’ve had higher growth rates than today with higher taxes than today. He makes sense to you because he wants you to be even richer. That’s all.

ernesto

WHAT!!! He wants us to be richer? That bastard!

By the way, we had higher growth rates when a president molested an intern in the White House. We also had higher growth rates when the minimum wage was less than $1.00 an hour, so what’s your point?

Being against Cap&Trade is one of my personal non-negotiables. Can you not see why GE, who would be able to get a cornerstone on the energy-saving-device market, would be interested in pushing a candidate who is seems more “flexible” on this issue than another who is “drill here, drill now?”

Mutnodjmet

Jack Welch is not GE, and I’m not sure how destroying the economy with Cap and Trade would improve GE’s bottom line. Still, if that’s your argument, then why play around with Republicans at all when you can get guaranteed cap and trade, and more by pushing a candidate like, oh, I don’t know, Barack Obama?

But how can you blindly insist that lower taxes will produce economic growth when the last round of tax cuts was followed by a massive collapse?

ernesto

First off, your history is wrong. The tax cuts took place about 5 years before the economic crash.

More significantly, is the matter of cause and effect. The cuts did not cause the economic downturn. That was the result of a credit crisis brought on by LIBERAL home loan policies. Policies which pressured the GSE’s to overrate the safety of credit extended to those who hadn’t earned that level trust. And to policies which encouraged banks to extend loans knowing that the taxpayers had their backs when things went bad.

You need to read up on Jack Welch. He retired 10 years ago and Immelt was not hand picked by Welch. Immelt was ruthless in his pursuit of GE’s top spot and was named by the board.

He was named manager of the century in 1999 by Fortune or Forbes, I forget which.

As far as his personal life, he’s been married 3 times, The first was a mutual parting of the ways, the second was initiated by the wife who walked off with milliobns. He is currently married and his wife works with him in motivational seminars or something similar.

Pawlenty mentioned Welch’s “Six Sigma” way of managing a company in his speech the other day. That may have caught Welch’s attention more than anything.

Vince on June 9, 2011 at 12:12 PM

LOL, you left out the juicy part. Welch cheated on his second wife while carrying on an affair with soon-to-be wife #3, and said future third wife was forced to resign her job as editor of the Harvard Business Review as a result.

Wonder if she actually wrote any articles for that publication?

Welch himself should stick to his night job as occasional in studio analyst for Boston Red Sox games.

I certainly don’t think Palin’s stupid (only light on policy), but I only have one vote, and every single piece of information on the voting public we have indicates that they view her negatively.

KingGold on June 9, 2011 at 10:55 AM

But all that extraneous stuff is so much frou-frou as compared with the real substantive issues, whether it’s negative or positive. And I hasten to add, Palin’s shown herself to be at least as substantial as Pawlenty on policy.

The bottom line is Pawlenty’s a good man, I woudln’t have any problems voting for him, but I just don’t think he has the ooomph to win nationally, especially against Obama.

LOL, you left out the juicy part. Welch cheated on his second wife while carrying on an affair with soon-to-be wife #3, and said future third wife was forced to resign her job as editor of the Harvard Business Review as a result.

Did not know that. They actually got married after the affair and are still married? That’s good isn’t it?

It’s true that having an affair while married is a personal weakness but wouldn’t be a factor in appreciating Pawlenty’s ideas would it?

Weren’t you turned off by Jindal’s State of the union response that didn’t go so well? From what I have heard so far I like his take on things, but it seemed like he needs to get some years under his belt before moving to POTUS or VPOTUS. Am I missing something?

First off, your history is wrong. The tax cuts took place about 5 years before the economic crash.

More significantly, is the matter of cause and effect. The cuts did not cause the economic downturn.

That’s true, tax cuts did not cause the crash, nor did they result in significant job growth. Tax cuts generally help the economy and spur consumer spending, but in this case, their lasting legacy was to increase federal debt.

That was the result of a credit crisis brought on by LIBERAL home loan policies. Policies which pressured the GSE’s to overrate the safety of credit extended to those who hadn’t earned that level trust. And to policies which encouraged banks to extend loans knowing that the taxpayers had their backs when things went bad.

Not even the Reagan-appointed Alan Greenspan would agree with you, nor prominent bankers in the lending industry. No federal policy forced WaMu or Wachovia into approving any loan application presented by any home buyer, leading to the failure of both those banks. Wells and Chase emerged from the crisis with relatively small losses, under the same regulatory regime that you claim ‘forced’ every bank into increasing their revenues by approving more loans, even when the paperwork was clearly fraudulent.

It was unchecked Wall Street greed- the completely unregulated CDS derivites market and the securitization of home loans- that directly led to the financial crisis. You can read a book on this topic, such as Too Big To Fail, if you have any interest in understanding the true course of events (or watch the HBO movie).

Because of the reasonable comments I see from the Pawlenty supporters, I decided to really get into his record. I’ve watched his CPAC speech and the one he did this week on his economic plan. I must say i am very impressed so far. I like what his stance is on immigration too. This is a ray of hope for me. I thought for sure I would be carrying a barf bag into the voting booth when I had to pull the lever for Romney.

True about the cheating, but I fail to see how it’s relevant. If Pawlenty wants to position himself as a tough fiscal conservative, he needs people like Welch in his corner.

Incidentally, Welch predicted the 2004 election outcome percentages almost perfectly on Cavuto’s show the Sunday before the election. Bob Shrum was also on and he went ape when Welch asserted that Bush’s ground game would carry the day. I’ll never forget it.

T-Paw is a rational compromise between a real conservative and a Romney type who can appeal to a wide swath of the country and actually be elected.

rickyricardo on June 9, 2011 at 1:56 PM

I can’t say I agree with the premise that he isn’t a real conservative because I haven’t studied enough about all his positions yet. I have learned over my life to study the candidate and form my opinion on that education. I do agree that the person that will beat Obama must appeal to a wide swath of the country. And that probably means that candidate will not be a staunch conservative.

But how can you blindly insist that lower taxes will produce economic growth when the last round of tax cuts was followed by a massive collapse?

ernesto on June 9, 2011 at 11:02 AM

.

Not true… tech bubble caused the last recession just after the Clinton Kavalcade of Klowns vacated the administration. Tax reduction by Dubya spurred investment, growth, job creation and wealth creation.
.
You must be talking about something Carter did. He really killed growth and and job creation plus ate up more wealth through economic malaise and price controls than any Republican in history. Economic dysfunction is the purview of Democrats.

.
Yeah, I agree with all of that and can pretty much analyze it infinitum myself BUT Ernesto was asserting that tax cuts caused a massive financial collapse. The last tax cuts in this millennium were Bush administration cuts in ’01 and ’03 (except for the extensions in 2010) and there was no collapse because of that. There was a tech bubble collapse and a terrorist attack that challenged the new President in 2001, though.

Not even the Reagan-appointed Alan Greenspan would agree with you, nor prominent bankers in the lending industry. No federal policy forced WaMu or Wachovia into approving any loan application presented by any home buyer, leading to the failure of both those banks. Wells and Chase emerged from the crisis with relatively small losses, under the same regulatory regime that you claim ‘forced’ every bank into increasing their revenues by approving more loans, even when the paperwork was clearly fraudulent.

It was unchecked Wall Street greed- the completely unregulated CDS derivites market and the securitization of home loans- that directly led to the financial crisis. You can read a book on this topic, such as Too Big To Fail, if you have any interest in understanding the true course of events (or watch the HBO movie).

bayam on June 9, 2011 at 1:37 PM

Alan Greenspan was a disaster, whose easy money policies contributed to the bust. There were indeed Federal policies that pressured the banks to lend. The CRA and other regs were put in place for the very purpose. When banks did not comply, they weren’t penalized directly, but they were disapproved whenever they needed permission to perform a merger and other activities.

Don’t talk to me about “Wall Street greed.” Of course Wall Street is greedy, that is their job! Government’s job is to channel greed in productive ways. They thought they were doing that with the housing mess, but they did just the opposite, providing the incentives to do the wrong things. And that is what caused the crisis.

Notice, none of Obama’s people are saying “We like Pawlenty.” That means Pawlenty intimidates them. He has consistently said that Obama has failed to lead. My senator, Ron Johnson, is also out there making plain how Obama is “phoning it in” on the economy, esp. recently on the debt ceiling.

kscheuller on June 9, 2011 at 11:02 AM

Hmmm.

Pawlenty’s bold plan is chock full of Reaganesque economic principles and Paul Ryan seriousness of purpose. If he works on his “happy warrior” leadership persona, he can win over us old school conservatives even if a Perry or Palin enters the race.

Yep, but when Bush tried to provide some oversight, in 2003, it was the liberals in Congress who thwarted him.
Vince on June 9, 2011 at 1:54 PM

You still don’t get the big picture- read the book instead of parroting Rush or Glen. Bush never proposed regulating the CDS market or decreasing the leverage of the investment banks.

Government’s job is to channel greed in productive ways. They thought they were doing that with the housing mess, but they did just the opposite, providing the incentives to do the wrong things. And that is what caused the crisis.

Again, that’s right wing fiction- not even mortgage bankers responsible for the collapse blame the government in the way you do. Nor does Greenspan and his libertarian colleagues who failed to regulate the CDS market. You can read Too Big To Fail or just watch the movie if you have any interest in the real course of events. But the Glen Beck explanation is completely misguided. It wasn’t a liberal vs conservative problem that can be proposed to following a simple ideology.

Sorry but I don’t listen to Howard Beale (aka Glenn Beck) or to Rash Limbaugh. I educated myself on the real course of events and you have raised no argument to refute mine, just your assertions and innuendo about being some kind of ditto head.